Student-run coffee shop opens at La Salle-Peru High School

Students in Transitions program creates Cavs’ Sip-n-Savor to build life skills

Mrs. Diana Rathbun orders from the Cavs Sip-n-Savor cafe on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023 at La Salle-Peru Township High School.

Teachers at La Salle-Peru High School, and soon its students, can enjoy a new coffee shop business right on campus.

The coffee shop, called the Cavs’ Sip-n-Savor, is a student-run business serving hot or iced coffee and tea along with hot chocolate. Students in Transitions, a post-graduation special education program, created the business to help develop life skills.

Alex Angelina, a student at La Salle-Peru Township High School points to the latte coffee maker at the Cavs Sip-n-Savor cafe inside L-P's cafeteria on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2022 at L-P High School. The cafe is part of the L-P Transition program that provides indpendent living skills to students with disabilities up to age 21. Students are serving faculty and staff a few days a week but are planning to expand their catering to students during their lunch breaks next month.

The coffee shop began Jan. 10 and has since served teachers during morning hours. In the coming weeks, the group is planning to expand to serving students during lunch hours.

Kristie Witte, a special education teacher at L-P and head of the Transitions Program, said the program is run out of a house near campus for students ages 18 to 22 who want to return to school and continue building real-world skills.

“The main reason for a student-led business of any kind is to create employment skills, job skills,” Witte said. “This job not only gives them hard skills that you need to work out in the community, it also helps promote confidence, social skills, communication, everything that we are working on in the house, this just reinforces.”

Witte said the program’s setup at a house is the perfect environment to build skills, such as grocery shopping, meal planning, budgeting and employment skills. She said creating a student-run business, such as a coffee shop, reinforces skills for time and money management, productivity and communication.

One of the main goals of the program is to help students find employment that matches their goals and skills. Witte said she has former students working in the community based on their interests, including United Way, the library, Salvation Army and Stone Jug Barbeque.

Alex Angelini, a student in the program, has a job at Steinberg’s furniture. He works the front window of the coffee shop and said he enjoys doing it.

“I think this is a great opportunity,” Angelini said. “We started building our coffee shop slowly, slowly, slowly to where it is now.”

It took the length of a semester to get the Cavs’ Sip-n-Savor up and running. Students researched the kind of business they wanted, decided on a coffee shop and continued to research types of drinks and other items.

The group then created a business proposal and presented it to the school administration. Once it was approved, the students wrote a grant through the L-P Foundation and were provided money to cover startup costs. They also created a name, logo, business model, online ordering form and designed aprons for the business.

Eric Poole, student at La Salle-Peru Township High School, mixes up a cup of hot chocolate in the Cavs Sip-n-Savor cafe on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023 at L-P High School.

Kristen Derix, a paraprofessional at L-P who visits about once a week to buy a drink from the Cavs’ Sip-n-Savor, said she enjoys seeing and talking to her former students.

“It’s great hands-on work experience and they gain good life skills,” Derix said.

The proceeds from the coffee shop will go to the program for a special event or outing. Ideas include taking a train to Chicago for a musical, going out to eat at a nice restaurant, roller skating, a Chicago Cubs game or seeing Blue Man Group.

Witte said once the profits begin to come in from student sales, they’ll have a better idea of a target amount of money they want to raise.

Angelini said he’s most excited for when the Cavs’ Sip-n-Savor will be open to students. He said he thinks the group is accomplishing something good for the future.

“It’ll be good experience for the newer students and future transition kids who will be doing jobs like these.”